A Necessary Evil
by StarscreamII
Summary: Kacia Roane is drafted into the Terran army at the age of nineteen and left in the hands of a squad that can barely function. As if that weren't bad enough, it seems that increasingly dark secrets being revealed about Auraxis could impact much more than the war alone.


**A/N: **Wow. Hi, everyone. It's been a while, hasn't it? Yeah. Well, I don't know how many of you read my profile updates, but I'm taking a break from **Blue, Blue, Blue Christmas** until, well, Christmas. It's kinda hard to write about holiday cheer when it's 85 degrees outside. So, I started something new. Something _not_ Transformers. Appalling, I know. But, long story short, PlanetSide 2 is inspiring. So I went where my muse took me. Because Lord knows it's been too long since the last time I was inspired like this.

That being said, please enjoy this little teaser (this is not the first chapter, not by a long shot) and tell me if you like it or if I should scrap it (in which case I probably won't listen to you). **Read, enjoy, and leave me some thoughts!**

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She could feel the change as they passed through the forcefields. Even through the thick, armored chassis of their sunderer, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck prickled. The Indar warpgate. One of three. The only places on this hostile planet that she could call home.

"It'd take a helluva lotta firepower to bring these bastards down," her trainer had told them. "The only color these fields see is red, so unless some clown from the NC or the VS ends up with your uniform, they ain't gettin' in without a fight. Same goes for their gates, so don't get any plans to go stormin' the castle." Her training squad had laughed, but Kacia had listened with the ears of a rookie; too young and too inexperienced to take it all anything but seriously.

Feeling the sunderer trundling to a halt re-tied the knots in her stomach. This wasn't training anymore. This was war. Tomorrow, she would be fighting-killing-real people. People who wouldn't stand still and give her a chance to shoot. No, this was survival, not guided practice with holograms.

"Alright! Everyone out! Group up outside and wait for your instructions. You'll be joining a squad with at least one soldier of every other class, and one superior officer. This is your squad leader. You listen to them and you do what they tell you, you hear me?"

"Sir, yes sir!" was the unanimous shout.

"Good, now move!"

They all exited the sunderer amidst a flurry of noise. Kacia emerged into the sunlight, squinting. High above them, the landing pads of the warpgate buzzed with the constant traffic of aircraft arriving and departing. Higher still was the arch of the electric dome that kept them all from being completely wiped out of the war altogether. It was a disturbingly fragile barrier.

"Roane, you're in squad 227, with First Sergeant Atkins." Her trainer motioned to a small group gathered on the lower deck of the gate structure, about a dozen meters away. "Good luck."

She nodded her thanks and gave a quick salute before starting toward the squad in mention. Her steps were loud against the metal deck, and she had to keep from faltering as six pairs of eyes turned on her.

"Kacia Roane..."

She immediately stopped walking and saluted the tall redhead that was addressing her.

He gave her a once-over before laughing and shaking his head. "Relax. Save the protocol for the General." He turned to his team. "Jess and gentlemen, meet Kacia Roane. She's your sister in arms now, and I expect you to show her as much respect as you show each other, got it? We were _all_ rookies once."

There was a smattering of "Yessir's" from the other squad members.

"Kacia, this is your new squad." Atkins motioned to the other soldiers one by one. "Adam, codename Striker, our infiltrator."

The spy gave a nod of acknowledgment.

"TK, the man behind the MAX."

The burly, dark-skinned man gave her a firm handshake and a warm smile.

"Jessica, affectionately known as Jet, our light assault."

The blond grinned. "Welcome aboard, sister. It's a crazy little family, but we'll look out for ya."

Atkins continued. "Griffin is our engineer, Duke's our heavy assault, and I'm the medic. Or, I guess I _was_, seeing as I'm not the only one, now." He nodded to the thick cross patch on Kacia's vest.

"It'll be good to have another medic on the team," Striker muttered. "Duke can't aim that rocket launcher to save his life. Or ours."

There were a few snickers from the other squad members and Duke stepped toward the smaller man threateningly. "Ain't my fault you're always screwin' around with that invisibility shit right next to my targets."

Striker stared back evenly, seeming bored and not at all intimidated. "Would you like me to list the times my "invisibility shit" has saved your sorry ass?"

Duke looked about ready to spit out a comeback, but eventually just huffed and turned away from the spy, grumbling and shaking his head.

Striker smirked.

"Maybe next time, I'll actually aim _for_ you," Duke snarled, still walking away.

"Then I have nothing to worry about."

Duke whirled back around, but a loud chime effectively kept him from taking the snarky infiltrator to the ground.

"You all know what that means," Atkins announced, sounding relatively nonplussed by the obvious discord within his squad. "Jess, go ahead and give Roane a rundown of the place; show her where the bunks and the showers and the lockers are, then come meet us in the mess hall. Usual place."

"Yes, sir." The blond put her arm over Kacia's shoulders and led her away from the group. "Nice to have another woman on the squad for once. Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with the guys, but every once in a while all that testosterone can get on a girl's nerves."

Kacia nodded silently, making Jess shoot her a sidelong glance. "You don't say much, do you?"

"It's easier to listen."

The other woman shrugged in agreement. "Sometimes. But if you've got a good idea, then say it. Don't leave it up to me to be the only voice of reason around here." She sighed. "I'm making it sound like we're a bad team. We're not. We can kick some serious ass when all the boys decide to get their shit together and stick to the plan instead of trying to go off and be the heroes of Auraxis."

"…Does that happen a lot?"

"More than it probably should. Atkins is pretty lax when it comes to enforcing plans, but as long as we can make some headway and not end up dead in the process, I'm game for however he wants to run his squad."

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**A/N: **That's it for this little sneak peek. Hope you all liked it, since there's a lot more where this came from. Even though this isn't the real first chapter, feel free to give me any thoughts you might be having; they're always appreciated!


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